Genealogical and Personal History of Centre and Clinton County, Pennsylvania, 1912

David Campbell Biography

David Campbell died in Unionville, March 7, [unreadable]. at age sixty-nine years, five months, three days. He was a man endowed with an inomitable will and a vast amount of perseverance.

He was born in Centre County, about one and a half miles above Unionville, in the year 1809. His father had located there about three years previous.

"Squire," then a boy, was sent to John Hartsock, at Stormstown, to learn the blacksmith trade, after completing which be removed to Bellefonte and went into the employ of John Hall, working faithfully and long for him.

Like all young men at that time he got the western fever, so he took himself to Ohio to amass a fortune. He remained there about one year.

Returning to Bellefonte he purchased the shops from his old employer, Hall, and set up business for himself, carrying on a lively trade for a number of years successfully. It is said he was the fastest workman at the anvil at that time in this section of the country.

He made the first elliptic spring that came into use in this section of the country in the year 1835. After that time it came into general use.

He also was the inventor of other useful articles connected with his trade.

He married, in 1833, Jane Gillespie, by whom he had nine children, all of whom died but one daughter.

He was elected a justice of the peace in Bellefonte in the year 1833, and continued in office until 1847.

Elected by the Democratic party, of which be was then an ardent advocate, in 1854 he went over to the Know-Nothings, ever after remaining with the Republican party.

In 1854 he purchased a farm near the old homestead, on the base of the Allegheny Mountain, called Bell Grove Farm, one and a half miles from Unionville.
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